Novacon XXXIV
by DefinitelyNotScott
Summary: Modern/Cosplay/Convention AU Darius cosplays Reaper at Novacon XXXIV. Two fans grab him and a convenient Strike-Commander Morrison for an impromptu photo-shoot.


The young woman took a break from snapping pictures when her phone pinged a notification. Darius was gratified to be getting all the attention that had been directed his way; he had spent a lot of time and money getting his Reaper cosplay just the way he wanted it.

Vicky? Vickie? Something like that, looked up from her phone with stars in her eyes. "Ohmigod, my friend found a Commander Morrison! Would it be okay if we met up with them to get some pictures of you guys together?"

Darius shrugged. "Sure." He wasn't meeting Draven until later, and had no plans until that point, so he'd just been wandering around looming menacingly in the meantime.

He trailed her through the crowd, and assumed they were approaching their destination when her hand shot up in the air and she started waving it back and forth frantically. He caught a glimpse of blue and blonde through the moving people, and another woman in that general area gave a happy shriek, running up to… _Vickie_ (he decided firmly).

"Oh, wow! He's perfect!" she said, then turned to him. "Hi, I'm Wendy!"

He raised his hand in a practised motion. "Hi."

The two women exchanged a look brimming with excitement. "Eeeee," they said quietly to each other. Then Vickie craned her neck around to look behind her friend and gasped.

"She's so tiny!" Vickie said.

"I am a normal sized person," a familiar voice said in a tone of amused annoyance. Darius finally got a good look at the Commander Morrison who had followed Wendy over. It was Lux Crownguard.

"You have to admit that compared to the actual Morrison you're, what? A foot too short?" he asked. He could see Vickie and Wendy fading back and getting their phones up.

Lux wasn't going to take that comment lying down though, he saw her straighten, and brace her shoulders, her chin coming up and her eyes snapping. "And you're, what? Half a foot too tall?"

"Yeah," he said absently, focused on her hair. That didn't look like a wig. "Did you cut your hair for this?"

She relaxed some when he agreed with her, puzzlement seeping into her expression at his question. "Yes..."

Damn. That was dedication. Her hair had been pretty long.

"Do I know you?" she asked.

He had forgotten that the mask gave his voice a little extra reverberation.

"You'll figure it out," he said, then wondered if his grin was audible when he said it.

Her eyes narrowed, brows pulling down into a frown and posture snapping back into rigid lines, as she breathed, "You!" So that was a "Yes."

He laughed.

"I know this isn't in character," Wendy whispered. "But this is _totally_ in character!"

Vickie nodded vehemently. " _Yes_."

That managed to break the tension and Lux turned back to the two women with her usual smile. There was a brief discussion of the best place to take pictures. Darius sat that out since he didn't care, taking random pictures with opportunistic passersby instead.

Soon the four of them headed to a more isolated part of the venue, a few extra people who had figured out what was going on tagging along behind. They ended up in the back parking lot where they had a choice of backdrops: open concrete, parked cars, vaguely industrial looking building, or a grass and scrub filled ditch between the hotel and what looked like apartments.

They started out with a few individual pictures, then stood next to each other portrait-style before moving on to something a little more antagonistic. Separated by a good distance, they faced off, weapons drawn and aimed at each other.

The two women darted back and forth, taking pictures from different angles as he and Lux slowly closed the distance between them. It amused him to note that despite it being nothing but a prop, and the threatening way she brandished it, her finger never approached the pulse rifle's trigger.

"Nice trigger discipline," he commented when they were in easy conversational range.

She returned the smile she couldn't see with her own dazzling version. "Bad trigger discipline is a sin."

"I didn't even realize good trigger discipline was one of my kinks until you said that." He smiled behind his mask, anticipating an amusing reaction.

A blush burned across her cheeks. " _Darius!_ "

The tempo of camera flashes increased.

He laughed, and she punched him in the shoulder, shaking her head in embarrassment, but also half laughing.

After that they tried some action-oriented shots: one where Lux crouched down behind a car with him looming on the other side of the hood, another with him airborne in a jump off a convenient wall. They briefly ran around on the concrete, miming a firefight. He couldn't help laughing when she shouted "Pew-pew-pew!" as they dodged back and forth, but he called it practically right after they started, to keep from overheating. That was expected considering Reaper's outfit, but still disappointing.

Lux laughed at his grumbling. "That's what you get for picking the original skin! You could have done Wight, or El Blanco."

"Do you know how hard it is to keep white clean? No thanks."

"True," she agreed. "If you want to keep going, we could do something that's less active but still intense."

"Yeah?"

"I've got an idea. Hey, Wendy. Get up on this wall." She patted the wall he had jumped off of earlier.

"Okay?" Wendy walked over to the end where it was easier to climb up. Once she was up, she sat on the wall, kicking her heels against the bricks and occasionally snapping a picture.

Lux turned to him. "Now grab my collar, no! My neck! Or maybe my jaw? Whichever looks more threatening?"

"Go for the underside of her jaw, so you can push her head back," Vickie suggested. "And we can see your claws on her cheek."

"Okay…" he did as they suggested, and after repositioning a couple times they found a pose everyone was happy with.

Lux wrapped both her hands around his wrist. "All right, now lift me up, a little higher than you are tall, so I'm dangling."

"I'm not going to lift you by your _jaw_."

"You won't _be_ lifting me by my jaw." She squeezed his wrist. "You'll be lifting me by my _hands_. Come on, I've seen you at the gym. I know you can do it."

"Well… Uh…" He still felt vaguely like he should object. "Kick me or something if you need down."

"I'll be kicking you for the pictures." She grinned at him. "But don't worry, I won't scuff your coat. And if there's a problem I'll just tap out." She tapped two of her fingers against his wrist. He was relieved she had a plan.

"Okay," he said, and braced himself to lift. As promised, she pulled herself up to his wrist and hung there. Unlike a dumbbell, her weight was unevenly distributed, swaying slightly. Not that it was much of a problem, she couldn't weigh much more than a hundred and ten pounds, one-twenty _tops_.

While comparatively she didn't weigh much, she was still an entire adult person, and what with holding her out at full extension he thought his arm might give out before hers did. The other hard part was to _not_ grip with his hand; he was conditioned to try and _hang on to_ the things he was lifting. While she kicked him delicately in the ribs and the two women snapped pictures from their different angles he concentrated on holding her face tight enough for realism, but loose enough not to hurt or scratch.

Finally, she tapped his wrist and he opened his hand. She dropped off even as he lowered his arm. He slowly moved his hand and arm to readjust to its natural position and tension. Lux did the same, shaking out her arms and hands.

"That was amazing!" Vickie said as Wendy climbed down.

The pair spent a few moments peering at each other's phones to compare results while he and Lux stretched out. He heard them alternately cackling with glee and sighing happily. This was the part he loved: seeing people get excited about one of his own favorite characters. Not that he usually had such involved photo shoots, most of the time it was just whatever opportunity presented itself, or selfies with random attendees.

Lux wandered over to peer over their shoulders while he pulled out his own phone for a quick glance at the time. There was still plenty to spare. Playing off of Lux's Morrison was actually a lot of fun, more fun than he usually had alone.

Finished swiping through the latest pictures, they looked his direction.

"You cooled down enough for another round?" Lux asked.

"We haven't used the ditch yet," Vickie pointed out.

"Oooh. Yeah," Lux said. "Anybody have any ideas?"

"I do," Wendy said as they all headed that direction. "Since the ground is soft there… Could you… like… Black-Widow-style choke him out with your thighs?" She ended in a rush, eyes darting nervously between him and Lux.

"Uh…" he said, because _what the hell?_ You don't just ask someone to _do_ that.

Lux gave him an appraising look. "Depends how sturdy those props are."

He straightened up. "Are you questioning the quality of my workmanship?"

"Maybe a little," she said flashing him a smile and giving her head a cocky tilt.

Darius heard Vickie's camera go off.

"Unless you're actively trying to damage them they can survive anything you throw at them," he huffed.

"Okay!" She sounded so _perky_. He snorted, watching her set her pulse rifle on the grass.

Before he registered what was happening she was running _straight at him_ , and he had a tiny monkey-girl _all over_. He flinched back, her mobile weight wrenching his balance in strange directions, but her legs were already up and closing around his head. Avoiding having his neck snapped required falling over face-first, or at least that was what his body seemed to think.

"FUCK!" His arms flailed and he tried not to kill her with his body-weight. She was moving again and he didn't know how to land. If he fell on her he could easily snap her in two or three pieces.

He ended up on his back, fairly sure neither of them was injured, if the way she grinned down at him when she moved to pin his head between her knees was any indication. A relieved sigh escaped his lips.

"You realize I'm not a stunt-man and you could have accidentally killed one or both of us just now, right?" he groused.

The grin splitting her face widened. "What? This isn't the way you want to go out?"

His eyes narrowed behind his mask. "In this position I think I'd rather go down than out."

"Gaaah!" she said, pressing one of her hands down on his mask, obscuring his vision. Too bad, she was probably blushing again. "I really ought to just kill you for that, you perv."

"I'm a lot harder to kill than you think."

"Am I supposed to make a "How hard _are_ you?" innuendo now?" she drawled.

"Hah." He settled his hands delicately on her upper thighs, careful of the metal claws on his fingertips. "You can if you want."

"No _thank_ you, because _I_ am _above_ that!" she said, suiting actions to words by standing up.

He let his hands fall away as she stood, his eyes wandering up her entire length as she rose, her size artificially stretched to an impressive height by the angle. He smiled behind his mask, but didn't say anything because he didn't want to get his face stomped on.

She moved away and he sat up carefully, still surprised he'd escaped injury or death.

"But not above wrapping your thighs around a guy's head?" he asked. "You didn't even buy me dinner first!"

She let out a peal of laughter, and he heard the other women smothering sounds of amusement.

"I'm sure people usually buy you dinner _before_ wrapping their thighs around your head, but how do you feel about reversing the order?" she said with a grin, and jabbed her thumb in the direction of the side parking lot, where a small fleet of food trucks had congregated.

"Well." He turned his head side-to-side, checking his neck. "It's your dime."

"Great!" she said, bouncing up on her toes, and hefting her pulse rifle.

Darius stood up with a grunt. He took a moment to brush his palms over his pants and duster to remove leaves and bits of grass before squatting down to pick up his guns.

"Nooo!" Lux said. "You have to pick them up sexy-like!"

"What."

"You know, lean over from the waist and stick your butt out. So they can take pictures!" She waved a hand in Vickie and Wendy's direction.

He wasn't _entirely_ sure she was joking, even though her eyes were sparkling with laughter.

"No," he said, flatly, standing up, guns in hand.

Her face lit up at his refusal, confirming it as teasing while she continued, " But…"

"There are _limits_ ," he interrupted before she could get started.

"Fine," she said. "...but you're disappointing your fanbase." She had a hard time sounding exasperated around her grin

Darius glanced pointedly at the two women still holding their phones.

Vickie held up one hand in denial, saying, "Nope. We're fine."

"Yeah, we already got _so_ many good pictures," Wendy piped up, waving her phone.

"Sounds like the only part of of my _fanbase_ that's disappointed is _you_." Darius crossed his arms, secure in his logic.

"Traitors!" Lux said, though the accusation was without heat.

The two women glanced at each other.

"We really couldn't ask for more," Wendy said.

Vickie nodded. "We can't thank you guys enough, you were both _super_ cooperative. It was great! And the height difference was _perfect_."

"You mean _inaccurate_?" Lux asked, voice arch.

"If you were taller, the thigh-choke wouldn't have been as... visually appealing." Wendy offered, an awkward smile on her face.

Lux snorted.

"Speaking of..." Darius interrupted. "...there was something about buying me dinner?"

"You're the one slowing us down with all your guns," she replied, tossing her head. It didn't quite have the same effect with her long hair gone, and the abrupt end of the motion showed she knew it.

"Let's go then." Guns secure in his duster, he waved to Vickie and Wendy and started walking toward the food trucks.

"Don't forget to tag me when you post those!" Lux called over her shoulder. The two women replied with assent and more thanks. Lux jogged to catch up with him, trotting beside him when she drew abreast.

He reached over her head, and tentatively ran the tips of his claws through the gelled spikes of her hair. The brittle scrape of the gel against the metal felt almost wrong in comparison to his memories of her longer style.

"I still can't believe you cut your hair."

Grinning, she looked up at him, her eyes alight with mirth.

" _I_ can't believe I thigh-choked you into going on a date with me."

The faint click of a phone taking one last picture sounded behind them.

 **Author's Note**

Vickie is modeled on vickjawn from tumblr, and I obtained permission to insert her into the story before publishing.


End file.
